Which has the biggest impact on tone from a Les Paul?

Shepdoggiest said:
I also have a JB in my main guitar and am feeling the same about it's nasal tone now coming from an Ultra to the iii 2 months ago or so. I have a 59 in the neck as well and even with cab cuts and bass reduction it seems like there's no 'ass' in the JB when I get the 59 tonally happy to my ear. I would hate to have to create a separate scene for pickup changes. Speaking of gain, I'm programming a bunch of Pat Travers songs and that has painfully taught me about using less gain, more turn up the amp for power saturation. Such a fine line it seems at times.
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I also have a jb and always have been a jb fan when playing with amps.

but it seems the jb is not great with modeling. At least to my ears. Really compressed tones.

I’m gonna try a paf36 instead soon.
 
I am a MASSIVE Les Paul fan. I simply love the things. I can stand in a guitar shop for ages just looking at them thinking that they are to my eyes the most beautiful guitars ever built.
I enjoy reading people's thoughts and comments on what makes a good well-sounding guitar. Personally, I would think pickups and pots can make a big difference. But I am in no way an expert.
I have an old LP (40 year old-ish) that I started to strip to carry out a refinish, with pups etc removed but for some now not known reason I refitted the bridge, tuners etc and some strings (an acoustic Les Paul) and found that the guitar is really loud and sounds great. It is a lot louder than any other LP's that I have. When eventually I do the refinish I am fitting Faber hardware and locally made custom PAF style pickups (not yet bought, but they have been on my radar for months).
If I can make my old LP sound as sweet as this one in the video I will be extremely happy.

https://www.google.com/search?q=you...ate=ive&vld=cid:01397ef8,vid:lg7abZXcjl0,st:0
 
Not a Les Paul, but a PRS CE24. I put the SD Alnico II Pro in the neck and it nails the GnR neck pickup sound. The CE is a double cutaway bolt on maple neck, so I second the idea that the pickups have a massive effect on the guitar's amplified sound.
 
Shepdoggiest said:
Great to hear. I have been looking at getting a set of The Mule, for about a week now but haven't jumped. The unpotted was something I was concerned may be squealy. Now I know! Thanks much.
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Please consider that I prefaced about not playing über high gain. That said, my guitars sound great through both a 1969 plexi, and a 1981 JCM800. That amp has quite a bit of gain.
 
I have two Les Paul's that were made 1 year apart. They weigh almost the same and the neck measurements are also almost the same. They sound quite different from each other acoustically. I have different pickups in them, which makes a huge difference, but I can also hear the acoustic differences come through when plugged in as well. One is much brighter and has kind of a snappy top end the other has more mids and is more full bodied sounding. I think a lot of it is probably just differences in the wood.
 
jetdriver1775 said:
my all around fave now is the Custom Custom, with a 59 in the neck
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The SD Custom Custom is one of my favorite pickups, too. I usually pair it with an Alnico II Pro in the neck, but the 59 is a great choice, too, and is just my personal preference.

@Shepdoggiest , I have 8 Les Pauls and gravitate towards Marshall and Marshall-like amps, both in the AFX and tube amps. IME, pickups make a bigger impact on sound than the wood does.

For me, a guitar must speak to me before I'll take it home. Mostly, it's the way the feel and how well that matches up with my playing style. I almost never plug one in when trying it out for the first time. I figure I can adjust pickups and wiring if need be, but it needs to feel good and sound good acoustically if I'm going to keep it. So, the wood and the construction definitely matter to me, but I try to take it as a whole and have changed a lot of pickups along the way.

If this helps, here's a run-down of the LPs I have at the moment...
'77 Les Paul Artisan 3pu - solid; Bareknuckle Crawler (bridge), Mule bridge (middle), Mule neck (neck)
'93 Les Paul Studio - weight relieved; stock 498 (bridge), 490 (neck)
'99 Les Paul Custom - weight relieved; SD Distortion (bridge), Alnico II Pro (neck)
'02 Les Paul Standard - weight relieved; SD Custom Custom (bridge), Stormy Monday (neck)
'03 Les Paul Custom '57 RI - solid; Bareknuckle Rebel Yell (bridge), Stormy Monday (neck)
'03 Les Paul Custom '57 RI - solid; Bareknuckle Black Dog (bridge), Stormy Monday (neck)
'05 Les Paul Junior - solid 2-piece; Bareknuckle Nantucket P90
'21 Les Paul '60 RI - solid; stock Custombuckers (both)

I'm not sure I could pick a favorite. They'll all do 70s/80s rock, but are all different, too. The R0 is the most aggressive because it has the most attack and the low-output CBs accentuate this. The R7 with the high-output Rebel Yell just screams (think John Sykes). The other R7 with the moderate-output Black Dog is more like the R0 but more compressed and a fuller tone. Both R7s are all mahogany, too, no maple top but ebony boards, and have less attack than the others. There's a bigger difference between the all mahogany ones than there is between the weight-relieved and non-weight-relieved ones. I might say the Artisan has the best unplugged sound, but it's a close thing with the R0; both are maple-topped and non-weight relieved, but have different fretboards (R0 is RW, Artisan is ebony). I don't have a chambered LP, but do have some semi- and full-hollow bodies and typically favor low to medium output pickups in those. Bottom line is that, to me, wood has an effect, as does construction, at least in my ears, but not nearly as much as the pickups. Just my opinion, though.

In general, I think that, other than the player themselves, speakers (and/or IRs) have the biggest impact on tone. Amp topology is next (e.g. Marshall vs Fender, MV vs non-MV, number of gain stages, output transformer), followed by pickups, then everything else to a lesser degree (wood, construction, design, strings, picks, cables, humidity, et al).
 
Pickups make quite a big difference. Check this out for instance:


You'll have to jump around a fair bit, but you can hear that the Blackbird 'Ulfberht' Overwound is quite compressed and very "picky" on the attacks. Much more so than the Duncan Distortion and the Nailbomb.

For the higher gain stuff, the Nailbomb and the Duncan Distortion sound quite different to once another. I used to use the Nailbomb quite religiously, but I got tired of fighting the wooly low end of the pickup. I also used the Bareknuckle Rebel Yell's for a bit too, and they were a bit clearer sounding.

I think pickups are probably the number one thing that will affect your final tone.
 
jetdriver1775 said:
One is heavily relieved/chambered and the one is a hefty non relieved traditional. The others are standards. The chambered one had a JB in it, which had a bit too much nasally honk in it - switched to a Duncan Custom Custom. I prefer Alnico II magnets for a more rounded tone, but still mid gain and punchy. Of course, they all have their differences, but like I said the BIGGEST difference came from the pickup swap. I was a JB/Jazz combo guy for a long time, but my all around fave now is the Custom Custom, with a 59 in the neck. That gets me from 70s/classic rock/blues, to grindy Alice In Chains to more modern metal if needed. The older I get, the less gain I feel I want or need LOL.
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My Les Pauls are long gone(I'm not a big guy and the weight was always a factor) but I've got Custom Custom's in one of my L6S's and 3 of the Partscasters I've assembled. The mids and highs are pretty much perfect out of the box, but they can get just a little flubby on the low end. At least to my ear. I've addressed that by adding a passive bass cut control in all my guitars similar to the one in the G&L's. If I feel like I need a little more detail I just roll some lows off. Jazz or Duncan Stacks in the non-bridge positions depending on the configuration. Never really have been a high gain player - guitar tone-wise I'm in that Git Yer Ya Ya's Out, Live At Leeds, Rockin' The Fillmore slot most of the time.
 
I just bought two Les Pauls admittedly my first real Les Pauls, one a P-90 the other Humbucker both are Classics with the 60;s neck carve and neither are weight relieved. The Gold top is a mans guitar for sure weighing in at 10 Lbs 3 oz it's the heaviest guitar I own. The Ebony is roughly a Lb lighter give or take.

The differences in sound are the pickups obviously that's said for lightly driven tones or edge of breakup the P-90 hands down is the favorite! Classic rock tones can be either way hard rock and metal the humbucker Gold top!
 
In my personal experience:
1. pickups
2. electronics and wiring
2. bridge: only if it's really different in design and materials compared to the stock ToM bridge, I'm using few special brass bridges on my Les Pauls and they make do the guitar sound snappier, especially if you have to mount them in a different position to provide the same action and intonation. Using a drastically different bridge can also change your right hand movement and force you to play differently.
3. guitar body design and material: I have a 70's Aria that has a wooden plate on top of the body that adds a small air pocket, and it sounds darker and different compared to a regular Les Paul with same pickups, bridge, electronics and wiring
4. everything else

This video has been posted already on these forums at least once, but why not post it once more:
 
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